he young “Messiah” has been caught in an unsavoury tug of war between club and country as both FA’s are chasing his services for respective competitions.
Barcelona wants him to remain at the club so that he can participate in the pre-season friendlies and eventually in the qualifying round of the Champions League, while his country, Argentina, is desperate to have him in the national set-up for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games.
The player himself has already stated his intentions of going to China for the summer games, but the Barça board have other ideas and they appear to be doing everything to ensure the 21 year old boards their flight, literally.
The Barcelona squad will gather at El Prat airport at 0915 hours on Monday where they will depart for Scotland to begin their pre-season training.
On the same day, the Argentine national team will fly out at 2105 hours to Tokyo, where they will play a friendly on the 29th of July in preparation for the Olympics.
The Blaugrana have been in constant talks with both the AFA (Argentine Football Association) and FIFA to reach an immediate resolution, but there seems to be no end in sight.
Barça, however, have been thrown a lifeline after Jacque Rogge, president of the Olympic International Committee (OIC), brought up the point that it is not absolutely compulsory for clubs to release their players to the national team as the football in the Olympics is not an official FIFA tournament.
Should Messi choose the Tokyo flight on Monday, he will be unavailable for Barcelona until the 24th of August, just one week before the La Liga campaign kicks off.
Stay tuned for the outcome!
KS Leong
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